


Dear brother

by Tinnevelly



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1478779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinnevelly/pseuds/Tinnevelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First little story here: a mysterious murder happens in the mansion. The murderer could be anyone. Maybe after all the past gets back to the robots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfiction after a very long hiatus. I hope my style of writing can be deciphered. XD  
> I am a German and translated the story myself, so I am terrible sorry for any mistakes. 
> 
> Making it short: The members belong all to themselves, no money was earned with this fic, yadda. Have fun!

Rabbit, 1896  
„R-r-r-r-rabbit.“, stammered the head and turned his sensors, as if he tried to grasp everything in the room at once.  
„No, no! What is it now?“ With a calm hand Peter A. Walter I. tried to loosen the wires to calm the robot down „Pappy, fear!“, squeaked the voice of the head, but relaxed aprupt, as the cable responsible for the stammering was found.  
„I am sorry, Rabbit. Seems like we both need to go back to the drawing-board.“  
„Rabbit saw everything.“  
„What do you mean, Rabbit?“ Peter turned towards the head and studied the fine movement of the facial “muscles”.  
„Rabbit did see r-r-r-r-r-robots. Like Rabbit!“ The head almost seemed to jump up and down from excitement, Peter made a imaginary note to look into that later.  
„Robots? Like you? Rabbit, sadly there are no others. You are unique.“  
The sensors squealed, as they were striped. Oil overflowed from the corner of the eyes, a sign that the young Rabbit was crying.  
„Don’t cry! I already have plans for other robots, but for now they are only plans..“, tried the human to calm down his machine.  
„But Rabbit saw them! Golden and silver! There was a feeling. Pain.“  
Peter A. Walter I. risked a short look to his working table. No, the plans of the other robots weren’t visible for Rabbit. But where did he knew from, that he really planned two other robots, a “silver” and a “golden” one?  
„Come, I wanted to commence building your legs. Do you want to watch?“  
Rabbit’s head started to jump again.  
„Rabbit can help!!“

 

The Spine, 1944  
When he walked into the room there was darkness. His sensors were scanning the direct surroundings but he failed to find any vital signs of the men that went into the room before him. Slowly he put one foot in front of the other and stepped deeper into the darkness.  
„What do you think you are doing here?“, asked him a voice from the blackness.  
„Search and rescue, The Spine.“, he stated his name and rank how they taught him to.  
„You are on the wrong side, kiddo.“  
He listened to the voice. An understanding that shouldn’t be there screamed at him that something was wrong.Was it the voice talking in perfect English on the German side of the war? Or that his sensors failed to pick up the signal of a heartbeat although it was clear he wasn’t alone in this room?  
„That was my intention. I am searching for soldiers.“, he politely replied.  
„They are dead. Lying almost to your feet. Would a simple shot kill you too?“ There was curiosity in the voice, then the loading of a gun.  
„Negative. I was concepted to survive a hail of bullets.“  
He bent down to the dead soldiers and grabbed their dog tags. He couldn’t do anything so the only thing he wanted was to bring their families certainty.  
A shot fell and he felt the displeasing pressure of a bullet hole that had fractured his lines. The left hemisphere of his face turned dark.  
„Sorry, that disengaged itself.“  
He could have sworn he heard a faint laughter under that comment.  
„Would that be all?“, he asked laconically and turned to leave.  
„Why don’t you kill me? You are stronger and I am alone.“  
His sight sensors narrowed as he tried to phrase his answer logically.  
„You don’t have a heartbeat, sir.“  
With these words he left the house.

 

Hatchworth, 2012  
"There are endless piles of trash, that's all." The voice of The Spine echoed through the long corridors and lost in the carefully arranged stacks of tools, weapons, metal and other things that had accumulated over the last decades in the villa.  
"Come on, it 'll be fun ! Look, a hat!"  
The Spine placed his fingers gently to Rabbits new hat and took him from his brother.  
"This is a land mine . Be glad she did not trip." He scolded his older brother with an indulgent expression.  
"Boom , Rabbit gone," A merry laugh rang through the corridors . "I would be the master of playing hide and seek !"  
The Spine rolled his eyes and stalked sullenly through the waste.  
"Look, there are our old uniforms. And that one! What is it? "Rabbit extended one of his arms and grabbed something from the trash heap beside him.  
The Spine turned around and took it out of his hand.  
"This ? This is garbage." He muttered, and shoved it into his pocket. Pants. An idea of the humans. It disabled him in some movements, but it was " indecent " running around without them .  
"No trash! You've plugged it, I 've seen it!" A wide grin lay down on Rabbit’s face plates.  
"So I can throw it away. "  
"Put it back please . It doesn’t belong to you."  
The Spine and Rabbit turned simultaneously to the quiet voice which had come seemingly out of one of the larger clusters.  
"Wwwwww - who's there?" Precautionary Rabbit hid behind his brother.  
"My name is Hatchworth. I repair. I melt. I make things better. "  
" At least he has manners." The Spine tried to displace the small pulse that the name Hatchworth had forced in his wires. He knew the name, but did not know from where.  
" Hello Hatchworth! I am Rabbit and this is The Spine. Do you want to play? I am the master of hiding! "Rabbit had either not felt this impulse, or was ignoring it.  
"Games? What do we want to play?"  
From the pile flew a flat football, a baseball and a half chessboard. Rabbit looked at the yield and sighed.  
"This is boring . Let us be pirates!" He exclaimed as he pulled an old three-cornered hat between two metal parts of another cluster.  
"Pirates are scary." It sounded back from the heap.  
"But not if I have told you about Captain Albert Alexander!"  
The Spine released steam from his mouth. He should tell the humans of this "pile-being". Maybe it was dangerous.


	2. Day 1, 2013

He was exhausted and at the limit of his capabilities. A good glass of water and a long stasis would certainly help his body to function better. Maybe he should also go to Michael and had it checked .  
"I think ..." He looked around. He had made it in the mansion, as his friends and brothers had already left him - in not even two steps . "I think I'm alone." He finished his sentence and put down the bag with his things .  
Of course, Rabbit wanted to show her new dress to all staff, Hatchworth had moved into the kitchen to make sandwiches and certainly the humans were tired. How weak a man was, and yet how bad he wanted to be one of them. Sometimes The Spine confused himself with these thoughts, other days it seemed perfectly logical. In the end, you always wanted what you could not have, right?  
"A walk in the garden will do me good." He said into the silence and strolled towards the garden door.  
The sun shone and warmed his body quickly with its rays which brought the water in his boiler to heat up. Steam escaped his mouth and he let himself sit for a few minutes just plain useless on one of the benches and enjoy the sun.  
There had been days he had not been sure if he would ever see the sun again.  
There had been days he had cursed the sun, because it prevented him from an effective work.  
But now he closed his eyes and let the warmth flow through him. He heard the birds singing in the distance. Sometimes a loud noise from the mansion, but that was normal.  
Just a little thing irritated him. Something he did not hear.  
His eyes opened in a fraction of a second, ready to recognize and evaluate everything. But there was nothing! Nothing that could explain his restlessness turning almost into a panic. Sighing, he closed his eyes and tried to calm down. All strangers, threatening or other would steer clear of this house when they were in their right mind. There was no sign of danger, no war, nothing.  
"Stupid head." Muttered The Spine. A saying that he had copied from the humans when their minds were playing tricks on them. Bah, humans were really so easy to manipulate.... What was he thinking? After all, he wanted to be a man himself! Why should it be desirable to be a stupid and weak man?  
The Spine rose. Maybe the heat was just nothing for him and he overheated. He really should go into stasis.  
"Do you really want do that? "  
Lines and motors protested loudly as The Spine whirled around and saw the darkness in front of him.  
"What?" Oh yes, very intelligent question, The Spine thought but he was too busy scouring the files and shelves in his memory why the darkness seemed so familiar.  
"You should go in and kill them all."  
What an obvious manipulation! The Spine condescended to a humorless smile, trying to see something in the dark.  
"I think I 'm overheated and my wires are close to a short circuit." He stated factually.  
"I think Rabbit would be the last . Oh, one of the humans is the first one. Yes, one of these women. You should kill them and work your way up to Rabbit."  
The Spine sighed again and turned around. "I should talk to Michael. Something is not right." The same message he brought online to his brothers. Who knew what was going on with him?  
"Just ignore me. I only know that someone in the house is not ignoring me."  
"I don’t talk to stupid shadows!" The Spine roared against the darkness which then broke up with a laugh.  
"Tttt -the Spine?" Rabbit’s voice sounded a little anxious. It was a long time since The Spine’s recent failure function and it had ended bloody.  
"Rabbit, I would like to talk to Michael. I think my wires have a loose connection or something of that nature."  
"He's already on his way here. Hatchy’s up with him." The concern in Rabbit’s eyes was unmistakable and something in The Spine clenched painfully as he became aware that he was a danger if he remained in this state any longer.  
“I 'm afraid, Rabbit." He admitted softly. Quiet enough that no one else would hear him except his sister. "Fear of going crazy."  
"But you are crazy, brother." Rabbit’s face twisted into a grimace before it shattered into a thousand items.  
The Spine tried, out of something that would be closest to a human instinct, to collect the parts but it was too late. Rabbit was gone.

"RABBIT " He could swear that he was sweating. With wide-open sensors, he scanned the area and wiped away the water drops from his face.  
"I swear I didn’t do it!" The message came over his Wi-Fi.  
He had trouble moving. "Help me." Then everything went black.

"... Problem .... Too much .... Outside ... The Spine? Do you hear me?"  
A man leaned into his field of vision. Something squeezed his fingers. Another face shoved in his view, a robot. Rabbit. With a relieved smile The Spine sighed and squeezed his sister.  
"How do you feel?"  
What had happened? He was in the shop, he knew it. Michael Reed was with him. Rabbit also. Somewhere nearby, he could aim for Hatchworth.  
"W - what happened?" That was the priority.  
"You're probably asleep in the sun." Michael did not even try to suppress his grin .  
"And you were too warm. You have not been drinking!" Rabbit’s voice was reproachful but in her eyes The Spine saw that she was happy to have her brother back in his normal state.  
"We have filled your tank again and that's it." Michael explained.  
"I think I had a dream? Having a bad dream."  
Michael wrinkled his nose and scratched his neck. "That would explain why the two are half- crazy here."  
Rabbit laughed a little embarrassed. "We have noticed that you're scared. And we couldn’t find you! And then you called me and I found you and saved you and now you're doing well again and Hatchy’s waiting outside with ice are you hungry?" She uttered accompanied by steam escaping her vents.  
The Spine had to smile in spite of the confusion.  
" Of course." This time he did not remember Rabbit to the fact that robots had no feelings of hunger.  
"When you were offline, I 've had a look at your other lines. An oil hose in your temple has had a leak. Sure this was the reason of the problem. But I have sealed it and all is well."  
Michael did not seem to be particularly worried. He had not seen what The Spine had seen.  
But it had only been a failure function. That was all.  
Rabbit appeared next to him, holding out a large ice cream cup.  
"D-d-d-d-doesn’t it look tasty?”  
A finger was dipped in the ice and led to a human mouth. “And it also tastes delicious!" Michael confirmed with a broad grin .  
"Take your bacteria out of my ice cream." The Spine ordered with a smile. Everything was the same, everything was good.


	3. Day 4

"She fell down the stairs. That happens."  
Steve had been the first on the scene. The first who had called the ambulance.  
"How terrible."  
Hatchworth had offered her a sandwich and did not understand why the usually hungry Josie didn’t want to eat anymore.  
"She was still quite young."  
Rabbit had brought a blanket and covered the body of the young woman until the paramedics arrived .  
"Did she have family?"  
The Spine stood on the edge and watched the whole thing with a strange feeling in the boiler. He was there when the doctor confirmed the death. Josie had fallen, her neck was broken.  
Josie had bruises on the body.  
Josie had been thrusted.

"I just do not think that anyone in this house would be capable of doing such a thing," Michael protested loudly when Peter A. Walter VI . read the police report aloud .  
"This is bullshit!" Steve agreed.  
"The fact is that she had clear marks of violence on her body. Fresh tracks." Peter replied depressed. Also he couldn’t simply imagine anyone who would want to hurt Josie .  
"She was fairly new. Maybe she had enemies from the outside?" Carolina was one of the most senior Walter Girls. Born of a Walter Girl, loyal to the Walter family for generations.  
"And what if he simply came in here?" Matt asked quietly . He had talked to the family of Josie and had just come into the office.  
"Above all, he or she comes in, pushes Josie and disappears?" Michael stared at Steve.  
"Do you really think it was one of us?" He asked incredulously.  
"No, but there must have been someone. And if the guy just came in then everyone can be the next." said Steve. He was visibly upset. Peter knew that he and Josie had had quite a good relationship. All the more oppressed him what he had to say now.  
"Until this is resolved the police wants us to stay put. No appearances, hearings begin today after lunch."  
"Interrogations? Us?" All people in the room were shocked. But what if the murderer of Josie was really among them?

"I do not think it's that simple." The Spine was eyeing Rabbit’s architectural technology skeptically.  
"It's easy!" Rabbit ignored the objections of her brother.  
"It looks scary!" Hatchworth commented, eyeing the crutches. "Are these not made for humans?"  
"I can do that!"  
A crunch, breaking wood, a cry, a lot of oil.

"You did what?" Michael wiped the last oil from Rabbit’s stump.  
"I told her that it isn’t that easy. "  
"And it's scary!"  
" Enough!" Michael put on his welding goggles. "This is nothing I can’t repair again. But your sense of balance is not designed to run on shoes like these, Rabbit. "  
The addressed robot grimaced. "Be honest."  
"Do not pout, Rabbit. Yes, the shoes are not made for heavy machinery." Michael admitted as joined the wires at Rabbit’s foot back together.  
"Are you saying I 'm fat?"  
The Spine gave Michael a smile. "Women, right?"  
To his surprise, Michael nodded with a grin and fought with one arm the playful punches from a pouting Rabbit.  
"We'll build proper shoes. Does that sound good to you? Shoes that fit you and will hold your weight." He promised.  
Rabbit smiled contentedly and leaned back. "That tickles."

"So, Mr. Negrete, you have found the body?" The policeman was not particularly interested in at least feign sympathy, but asked his questions almost like a machine, without regard to feelings.  
"I heard a scream and ran to the stairs. That’s all."Steve explained the scene that had commanded him to call the ambulance.  
"I didn’t see anyone. That's why I thought she must have been fallen." He continued.  
The policeman looked at him. "So no one has seen you?"  
Steve shook his head. "Maybe Josie's murderer but not otherwise."  
"Why did you kill the young woman, Mr. Ne ... "  
"It wasn’t me!" Steve stared at the policeman. "I found her. That's all."  
"Because no one has seen you. You have no alibi."  
Steve snapped his fingers. "QWERTY is my alibi. We talked when the cry came."  
"QWERTY?"  
A screen swung himself down from the ceiling and a grinning emoticon appeared next to the face of the policeman.  
"QWERTY , did you have the cam online?"  
There was no verbal response but a video started playing. A video of Steve who spoke to the screen and then a scream was heard. Video-Steve turned and ran.  
The real Steve shrugged . "There's my alibi."  
The officer wrote it down. "Who would do that to Miss Josie ?"  
"No one. She was hired to look after the garden. That's all. She had no enemies in this house." Despair was in Steve's eyes as he remembered the short time with Josie. She had tried to explain to him the different plants in the garden. But for him they were all green. And she was dead.

"I was programmed not to inflict any harm to a human."  
"Not even in self-defense?"  
The Spine tried to make sense out of the question.  
"She was a young woman. Why should I use self-defense against her?" The answer wasn’t clear to him. He had seen Josie in her short time in the house once or maybe twice.  
"Maybe she has blackmailed you?"  
The Spine stood up. "Excuse my disrespect, officer, but you may come back when you have logical and understandable questions. I am a machine. A man can’t injure me so easily or extort or do something else with me against my will." He explained objectively. The policeman nodded and jotted down this answer. In another human being the explanation would certainly sounded threatening as The Spine had willed but this man just sat there and did his work .  
Somehow The Spine liked him.

"Josie had run away from home. We gave her a home here." Carolina gave the officer a brief smile.  
"Of course I immediately called her parents when she told me that she had ran away." She added.  
"You are very nervous." Remarked the policeman.  
Carolina laughed. "Of course, this is my first interrogation."  
"You have nothing to fear if you weren’t there."  
A cell phone ringing interrupted the conversation. The officer took the call.  
".... Yes .... understand .... Of course ... good to know ... "

"It turned out that it were hands that have caused this bruising. The scapula on the left is also broken. So it must have been a tremendous force. Approximately 19 cm in length."  
Some in the room breathed a collective sigh of relief when they realized that their hands were too small. Others looked around. Only a few had the force to break a bone with a nudge.  
And these three looked at each other now.  
"If one of the robots pushed her she would not have fallen but flown." Peter A. Walter VI protected his robots like his predecessors had done it numerous times before that.  
"Lacking fingerprints, we can’t say who of the three it was, so I am now arresting all three as murder suspects." The policeman needed no handcuffs, no more policemen.  
He was followed by the three robots, heads down, in silence.


	4. Day 7

"It wasn’t one of us. Everyone has got an alibi and why should we do it?"  
"J -j -j -j -j -j - josie was a nice girl. She has helped me to apply nail polish!" Helpless Rabbit presented her colorful fingers to the policemen.  
"I thought she only sleeps. It was scary when she didn’t want a sandwich."  
Three robots sat opposite two police officers and tried to maintain their innocence. The officers tried to bring silence into the chaos.  
"The fact is that someone has pushed the poor girl. Someone who had enough strength to break her shoulder blade. Do you all possess this power?"  
The Spine nodded. "Yes, we were built to develop such forces and even more."  
His siblings were silent.  
"So it couldn’t have been a man. Correct?"  
The Spine ventured briefly ponder a moment. "Now with a targeted impact it might even possible humans succeed."  
"We have two prints. Parallel."  
The metal man slumped. "So no kick. Then we might be the only ones in the house with this force."  
"Would any of you have something to confess?"  
Hatchworth stood up and began to wail. "I was there ! I stole the toaster from Rabbit!"  
Rabbit stared at her brother angrily . "You did it? Why were you doing this ? I want my toaster back!" With that she threw herself on Hatchworth and tried to find out where her beloved toaster was.  
The Spine looked at the officers. "We are not programmed to hurt humans. Even if it was an accident, we would admit it. "  
The two policemen wrote that down, folded the file and left the room. The fact that Rabbit and Hatchworth still wrestled on the ground, didn’t seem to care them.

"How are you?" Michael was one of the few who was allowed to visit them. As a mechanic it was necessary to ensure the maintenance of the robots.  
"Rabbit is bored." Said The Spine plainly.  
A coloring book and a few pens changed hands. "This is everything I could bring with me. I'm sorry." Michael smiled as Rabbit grabbed the stuff and threw herself on the floor to paint.  
"I'm sorry, Michael. We left you alone in the mansion. We should be there and catch the murderer."  
Michael laughed. "Detective Spine, hm? Let's be good. We'll be fine." A shadow fell on his face .  
"What 's going on?" The Spine realized that something was wrong.  
"There was a second murder."

The man was long gone, when The Spine struggled to tell his siblings the truth .  
"Michael told me that there was a second murder. He doesn’t know much, but ... " A quick glance at Rabbit and Hatchworth told him that he better left it at that.  
"Anyway, we were here and it couldn’t have been any of us. This will hopefully see the police the same way and release us."  
"The police believes that. But release is still not there."Said a police officer, who was just entering the cell block.  
"It could be a free rider , so you three are still under suspicion of murder."  
"Who is it this time?" Rabbit’s eyes filled with oil.  
"A young man named Charles . Someone has crushed his head."  
The Spine turned away from the cell door . Charlie had been an honest and nice guy. A little too weird for The Spine’s taste but a good guy.  
"Ch -ch -ch - arlie?" Hatchworth had been hit particularly hard. "He taught me how to make a sandwich!"  
The policeman nodded. “Listen, guys, and you, girl, I'm sorry."


	5. Day 12

Rabbit streched, waiting for the redeeming noise. When it finally cracked , she dismissed steam from her jaw vents and looked around.  
"Freedom is something beautiful." she remarked to loosen the mood of their brothers a bit.  
The Spine looked at her incomprehensible. Prisons or closed doors never did him good. Hatchworth was looking forward to seeing his friends .  
Rabbit wasn’t happy. In the morning she had learned that there was another death.  
"Mr. Snuggles has nothing to do with it" She muttered to calm herself.  
Whoever this idiot was, why had he hurt her plush rabbit?!  
"Mr. Snuggles?" The Spine appeared next to Rabbit and looked at her.  
"Carolina said that someone had been suffocated with him." Rabbit admitted contritely.

In the mansion this someone turned out as Peter A. Walter VI.

"No, Steve. Please leave the house. What will happen next here isn’t nice." The Spine tried to remain calm and bring people out of the house. Rabbit hadn’t come out of the hall of wires since her arrival and the revelation of the death of Peter. Hatchworth had disappeared in the basement.  
"The Spine, I understand ... "  
"No, you do not understand ." The Spine’s eyes narrowed. "People are replaceable. People die. But some people are a taboo." His voice sounded strangely distorted and he realized with amazement that it was anger that did it with him.  
"Let me help!" Steve was not the only one who wanted to help his friends. Also Matt and Michael had been added and were reluctant to evacuate.  
" No."  
The Spine had enough and closed the door behind the three men.

When he went online again in the evening he noted that Rabbit and Hatchworth were still busy. Well, maybe they would stay out of the matter.

 

Michael watched anxiously as the lights in the mansion went out abruptly.  
"This can not end well."  
Matt, who was sitting next to him, nodded. "But if we go, no one can guarantee anything."  
"Come on! We can’t just sit idly around here!" Steve had paced nervously up and down since their expulsion.  
"You've never been there, Steve. These are no longer the three nice guys." Michael smiled sadly.  
Matt looked at him. "Then the rumors are true? He has killed Sam Luke?"


	6. Day 13

It was just about noon and until now The Spine had no idea what he had to look for at all. The house was empty and dare, although there certainly seemed to be the sun shining outside.  
"Peek-a -boo!"  
The Spine didn’t turn around when someone put a hand on his back. Strong enough to break the bones of a man.  
Strong enough to push a robot down the stairs.

Rabbit did not quite know what to do. Sure, she had a thousand thoughts going through her mind when she came here. But all this had been replaced by an emptiness that she had not felt in a long time. It was one thing to lose a human after his lifetime. But by force? That was something else. But something nagged at her. She could have prevented it. Had she only been there…  
She did not hear the door open behind her. QWERTY awoke briefly to life only to disappear in the darkness. A darkness that got arms and grabbed Rabbit.  
"Have you!"  
And everything was bright

"Hhhhh - Hatchy?" Rabbit blinked against the light of the insulated hall of wires.  
"I knew that we still had a flash grenade somewhere!" Hatchworth laughed and held out a plush toy.  
"So I wanted to kill the monster."  
"This is Humphrey!" Rabbit recognized the tattered teddy bear and joined him in her arms .  
"And I found GG." Hatchworth noted. " Someone has hurt her!"  
Rabbit stared at him. The Spine had certainly taken care of the evacuation like QWERTY had said. Why had he forgotten GG?

A sound made him wake up. What had happened? His sensors told him that he was laying on his stomach. An elbow was broken, somewhere steam hissed out of a joint.  
With a groan of engines The Spine stood up and looked around. Of course, he had been pushed down the stairs. As with Josie. But Charlie and Peter were dead ...  
"RABBIT ! HATCHWORTH!" Panic let him go beyond all limits of his body as he ran through the mansion. In the hall of wired there was no one to be found. Maybe Rabbit had gone to Hatchworth in the basement ?  
As fast as his legs could carry him he ran down the stairs, tripped and fell the rest, got to his feet and scanned the surroundings.  
"RABBIT? HATCHWORTH!" Silence answered him .  
"You should have killed me when you had the chance."  
A presence behind him. But this time the light was on.  
"Who are you?" Slowly, The Spine turned around and saw the horror.  
"Ask rather who I am not." The elephant replied and knocked The Spine out.


	7. Search and rescue

"I've had enough! I’m going in now! They were 24 hours alone in there, it's quiet and I 'm damn worried!" It was Matt who brought this statement. Steve and Michael looked at him before they grinned and stood up. Steve took his bag from a hollow tree stump and Michael had his backpack in his hand. Matt looked at him reproachfully.  
"We wanted to go tonight when you sleep." Steve said with a visible bad conscience.

The light beam of the flashlight crossed the dark and covered all forms. Quietly the three men crept through the empty house.  
A scream tore through the night.  
"Matt, are you crazy? What the fuck?"Steve barked at him and turned to face him.  
"T-t-t-t-there!" The young man pointed to a pile of metal. "What is it?"  
Michael crouched down beside the pile and grabbed courageously into it.  
"This is clutter." He looked at the pile of wires in more detail. "Here are wires of Rabbit. And here are few from Hatchworth. There's a plate of The Spine!"  
His face darkened. "Okay, the game is over. The bastard is killing our boss and does this with our friends?"  
Steve grinned. "I just need to go to the workshops. Then we blow the guy away."  
"There is no need to do that."  
All three looked towards the stairs where The Spine stood.  
"Oh god, there you are! How are you? What happened? Where are Rabbit and Hatchworth?" Michael brought forth.  
"They are in the workshop. Follow me." And already the metal man was on the move and the humans followed him curiously.

"Okay, so where are they? Do something on the light."Steve groped for the light switch and pressed it.  
Light shone the various areas and dazzled the humans for a brief moment .  
Shapes, figures as torn out of time.

Rabbit, in an old shirt of her Pappy, sat leaning against a wall, staring into nothingness.  
The Spine, in his old uniform from the Second World War, was leaning against her, face contorted with pain.  
Hatchworth opened his hatch and pulled out a plate full of muffins from scratch. The muffins were all in the shape of an elephant.  
GG had a body and now looked down at the robots. Her legs were twisted weird.

Matt was the first person who found his voice. "If The Spine sitting there, who is ..."  
The Spine in front of them turned around and pulled the faceplate from his face. "The unwanted son. The elephant in a china shop. The hatred!"  
An unkown robot, made of gold metal.  
"You killed her?" Steve could not help but ask this question differently than calm. The panic had been able to get him and his two friends in a firm grip.  
"Time and time again I have tried to contact them! Again and again my brothers wanted to know nothing about me!" The eyes of the robot shone in a bright blue that put his golden face plates almost in the shadows.  
"I am the second brother! I am, not him!"  
The robot pointed to The Spine who began then to roar in pain.  
"They have ignored me and I'll show them what happens when they ignore me!"  
"Why did you kill humans?" Steve had understood Michael’s gestures properly and attempted to distract the crazy robot.  
"Why? They are their toys! They lose all the toys and then they suffer. And if they have suffered, I lock them away! Like they did it with me!"  
Steve shook his head. "These weren’t toys but people!"  
"Oh yeah ? The woman ! She was important to Rabbit. The man? Hatchworth. And Walter? The Spine. Rabbit is in stasis. I would never do something to her, she's family. But the others? And you?"  
Without flinching the robot reached back and grabbed Michael's arm. He squeezed mercilessly until the wrench fell out of his hand and the bones broke.  
"Do you have a name?" The options expired slowly. Michael sat on the floor weeping, holding his arm. Matt stood behind Steve without making a peep until now.  
"Son. I was the son my father never had!”   
The Spine was stirring a bit . "You never were completed. You have been a miscalculation. The matter in you is too strong! Your circuits could not keep up the energy. You're mad."  
He roared as the golden robot flipped a switch.  
"You are the error and you will suffer for it," the “son” replied.

Since half an hour they stood facing each other without a change. Steve and Matt without a chance, Michael with a broken arm and the robot helpless to this madness.  
"Okay. You must be aware no matter what happens here, you can not leave the house. We are only human." Steve tried to decipher the situation.  
"Yes, human to whom they have given their hearts," the robot replied.  
"People who you should not underestimate," called Matt .  
Three pairs of eyes found his slim figure. No one had paid attention to him and he had apparently used the time well. A hook slipped from the ceiling and pulled the golden robot into the air.  
Matt grinned as he looked at the metal man. "We are not as stupid as you think."  
He slumped, still and quiet .  
"And I'm not unarmed, as you see." The robot growled over them and began to target Steve.  
A scream and the lights went out.

When Steve's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw what caused this infernal noise. The Spine had plunged to the other robot and pulled him to the ground .  
Michael took the time and crawled to Rabbit. She would take some time to start up, he knew. His arm throbbed and drove him crazy.  
Hatchworth presented him a muffin and smiled. "I 'm maybe just a furnace, but they are certainly delicious." Michael did not bother to answer as the dry muffin crumbled into itself .  
"System failure." Rabbit’s eyes went dark again.  
"Start her up already!” Steve had armed himself with tools but could not intervene in the fight without hurting The Spine.  
"What do you think am I doing here?" Another muffin was presented to him. It looked delicious. And on top of the melted chocolate was enthroned a backup. Michael swore and took it.  
He couldn’t do it. With two healthy hands it would have been a damn work to install the fuse in Rabbits rear circuits but with a broken arm, it was an impossibility.  
"Steve, I need your help!"  
Steve randomly beat the golden robot with a shovel because he had Steve's leg packed . "I can’t!"  
"Do you need assistance, Mr. Reed?" Rabbit’s head moved slowly. From the corner of the eye Michael noticed that the fight had changed. The golden robot was winning.  
Slender fingers curled around the resistor and put him in with short and precise movements. The energy flowed again on its usual way and Rabbit’s eyes began to shine.  
"R- R-R - R-R - R-R -R - rabbit is now online."

Steve yelled in pain as his shin finally gave way under the weight. The Spine had lost the fight and lay motionless beside the golden robot. Now it was Steve’s turn to suffer.  
Rabbit was like a steamroller. Without regard for any loss she threw herself on her crazy "brother" and began to pluck at random wires from all open joints. But it just did nothing.  
As if by magic, new wires simply retreated through his body and replaced the broken. And for each broken cords, two new were laid.  
"You make me angry, sister." Noted the golden robot before he grabbed Rabbit and almost gently pushed her away from him.  
"You hurt my brothers. And if The Spine won’t wake up right now, then I'll make scrap metal out of you!"  
He did not wake up. Rabbit grimaced.  
"This is now a cliché ..." And with all the weapons of a woman she went off on her opponent. She scratched at the wires, bit into metal parts, kicked any vulnerabilities.  
And again she was gently pushed away from him. "This is my last warning, sister."  
He smiled, nodded as Rabbit kept her distance .  
"Sayonara!"  
There was a bang as Steve closed the power cable to the robot. Sparks flew and there was no jubilation. Lifeless metal clattered to the ground in the dark and you could hear someone crying in silence.


	8. Aftermath

Since the incidents in the mansion three days had passed and today Michael and Steve should finally be released from the hospital. The three robots waited outside the building.  
"You were in my head."  
The Spine smiled. "That was me."  
Rabbit poked him in the arm. "How did you do that?"  
Hatchworth stopped admiring his new legs and looked at his siblings. "With the chip, right?"  
The Spine nodded. "On the day when we found Hatchy, I also found a chip. I have my personality stored on it. So I would always be kept safe inside of you."  
Rabbit turned away. "I don’t like you anymore!" She stated.  
The Spine looked at her confused. "Why?"  
"You give me yourself to watch over and not even saying that I should watch out for you? You are stupid." Of course, that was logical.

They had buried the dead, clarified the issues, but still the workshop had not been entered.  
"We should melt him." Steve said one morning at breakfast.  
"I’ll run checks on the robots. And check if any malicious programs are running."  
Hatchworth looked at him and smiled. "Muffin?"  
The man smiled and gave the robot a pat on the back. "I will take extra good care of you."

It was not long before The Spine and Rabbit were the only ones in the kitchen.  
No one said a word. There was silence, when Rabbit leaned on The Spine and put her arms around him. He returned the gesture and smiled as he listened to the soft rattling of her boiler.

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it. I hope you liked the story. Thanks for reading.  
> Comments and reviews are always welcome! ^___^


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